The invention relates to apparatus for separating articles of laundry which are bundled together and discharged after the washing process in a modem laundry. The process and handling procedures described within this application mainly, but not exclusively, concern large laundry flatwork, namely: sheets, table covers and other similar rectangular textile articles.
After the washing and water extraction process, followed by a rotary tumbling process, which loosens up the articles, the bundles are discharged and onward conveyed by trucks or mechanical conveyors to the finishing departments where each piece is manually handled by the operators, who feed the items into the ironing machines. In order to increase the productive output and also to reduce the work effort of the operators, it is desirable to separate the articles from the bundle pile and then direct the pieces to the operators in a more handleable state.
Among the existing methods which are used to separate articles are those which employ grip and pickup mechanisms. These comprise a gripping device which is arranged for substantially vertical travel up and down and which is lowered to make random contact with the articles in the bundle pile. A pair of jaws are closed to grip a portion of the fabric and the mechanism is raised upwards to withdraw the article from the pile. At a predetermined height the article is released and directed on to conveyor means which will route it to the feeding machine operators.
For gripping mechanisms to effectively pick up and separate just one or two articles at a time it is necessary for the jaws to grip a relatively small portion of the fabric which does impose a danger of tearing the fabric when withdrawing from a heavily tangled pile. Alternatively jaws which are arranged to grip a substantial amount of fabric will tend to withdraw a greater number of articles with each pick up operation, consequently the process of separation is not efficient.
There are limitations with the existing systems regarding the degree of tangled laundry they can effectively process. The work loads in many laundries are transported in hand trucks which can be loaded to a depth in excess of 70 cms and here the bundle pile is compacted and heavily tangled.